


A Dying Star.

by signifying_nothing



Category: K-pop, VIXX
Genre: M/M, eonnie's famous crossovers, functional interspecies erotica, please read the notes please it's important, warped a/b/o
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:48:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5417642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signifying_nothing/pseuds/signifying_nothing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which taekwoon was supposed to be mated to jaehwan, and the aftermath of his discovery that no... no he's not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Star Implodes.

**Author's Note:**

> please note: my a/b/o universe is a bit different than the usual, i've found, in that i tend to let it follow the werewolves/pack dynamics in a more literal sense. the details in the story should flesh it out, but just be aware that there's some gender-fuckery and general weirdness. also functional inter-species erotica.

Taekwoon was fairly sure he was in love with Jaehwan.  
  
Taekwoon liked being with Jaehwan, who filled up his silence with laughter and knew when to stop pushing, unlike Hakyeon. So when they started to scent, when Taekwoon started paying attention to the way Jaehwan  _smelled_  to him, rather than the way he smiled or the way he sighed when he slept, horror filled up his lungs like cold water, because Jaehwan didn’t smell like mate. He didn’t smell like partner the way Taekwoon had always hoped he would, the way he _should have_. He smelled like lilies and ferns and moss, he smelled like the wild outside but not like mate.  
  
Nothing could have been more terrible than the look on Jaehwan’s face when Taekwoon told him some lie to cover the truth—that they weren’t working out, or Jaehwan was too much for him, or he simply didn’t love him. Nothing hurt so much as the way Jaehwan’s lips trembled before he tightened them because Taekwoon knew he was in agony. Jaehwan was not so good at controlling himself as he fancied, and Taekwoon could hear Jaehwan’s heart pounding in his chest, could hear it blow apart like a tree struck by lightning. He could smell the shift in pheromones and felt the change in his bearing from open and affectionate to defensive and afraid.  
  
And Jaehwan smiled, Jaehwan smiled and nodded and gathered his jacket and bag. He’d just gotten to Taekwoon's apartment; whatever good news had been tickling the blush into his cheeks and causing the smile on his face was forgotten in the tone of Taekwoon’s voice.  
  
He pushed into his shoes and said nothing. The silence was crushing them. Taekwoon couldn’t make the apology come out, couldn’t force it up through his choked throat. It wasn’t fair,  _it wasn’t fair._  Jaehwan, his perfect mate, wasn’t his mate and he’d broken his heart, made him cry. Taekwoon couldn’t see the tears as Jaehwan slipped out through the front door but he could smell them, saline in Jaehwan’s eyes and the sound of his controlled breathing through the wood stuttering only once before he fled.  
  
Taekwoon leaned into the door and rested his forehead against it, the palms of his hands. Slow, hard breaths and self-control kept him from sobbing but only barely. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. He deserved Jaehwan. And now he couldn’t even keep him close as a friend, because they’d been so much in love and Taekwoon cursed the wolf, cursed his blood and the full moon because he should have been able to love Jaehwan for the rest of their lives and he'd denied that. Denied the one thing that made him so happy he could burst by genetics that didn't _mean_ anything anymore, by biology that would, over time, cause Jaehwan to smell sour to him, if he tried to keep him close.  
  
Jaehwan didn’t show up at the tribe meeting the next week. Taekwoon ached in his absence while others touched his shoulders in attempted comfort. Even Hakyeon—bright and boisterous, secretive and sly, had nothing to offer Taekwoon but his silence and his warm, dark hand to hold as the elders filed out into other rooms to discuss smaller matters amongst themselves.  
  
Hakyeon didn’t ask, he didn’t have to. Taekwoon dropped his head to his best friends shoulder and breathed like panic, hard and raw until Hakyeon pulled him into his lap and hugged him tight. “I’m here, Taekwoon,” he promised, because that was all he could offer. “I’m here.”  
  
Weeks passed.  
  
Weeks passed and Jaehwan never came to tribe meetings, his scent grew stale, then disappeared and when Taekwoon finally gathered the courage to ask someone where he was they shrugged their shoulders and said something about him leaving. Where he was leaving to, they didn’t know: only that he was gone, and had been for several weeks.  
  
Gone? Jaehwan was gone.  
  
Somehow that made it worse. Taekwoon had been trying to move on, trying to let the scent of Jaehwan in his bathroom, his bedroom, fade away. He'd emptied the shampoo and conditioner bottles down the drain before placing them gently into the recycling bin. He’d finally put Jaehwan’s toothbrush in the trash. He’d changed his sheets and gotten a new mattress cover, he’d steam-cleaned his carpets and boxed up Jaehwan’s clothes and mugs and jewelry, mailed them to him with no note or return address.  
  
He’d finally started trying to let go and now, on his knees in his bedroom his hands were clenched around the cloth of the one thing he couldn’t give up: the button-up Jaehwan wore to bed, huge and soft, too big for either of them. His scent was nearly gone and Taekwoon sobbed into the terrible hawaiian pattern, pressed it to his face and wept like a child. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t _fair_.  
  
He nearly ran to the tribe’s protected grounds. The change happening as he was running, clothes melting into fur. It was a practiced skill, one Jaehwan had never mastered and somehow that made it so much worse. Sleek black, he ran until he couldn’t catch his breath, dropping to a bed of dried leaves and pine needles in the last warmth of autumn, huffing hard and ignoring his surroundings.  
  
Then came the sound of crying and broken twigs and he lifted his head, looking in the direction of the sound. There were several packs in the tribe and the young man he saw must have been from a different pack. He was dressed for the outdoors, in jeans and sneakers and a heavy hoodie beneath a lined denim jacket. He smelled like smoke and leather and salt.  
  
“Who’s there? Get out here, I can smell you.” he snapped, straightening and wiping at his face. Taekwoon eased up and let himself change, looking at the stranger with concern. “What do you want?”  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
“What does it matter to you,” he asked. Taekwoon recognized the hammering heartbeat, the tears and the bitter smell-taste of despair.  
  
“Who did you lose?” he asked quietly. The stranger stared at him for a moment, visibly trying to keep control of himself. “Tell me,” Taekwoon said, his voice low. “This is the season for losing lovers.” The stranger’s face contorted and he pressed his hands against his face.  
  
“He’s not my mate,” he choked out, leaning into a tree and sliding down the rough bark, hands tearing into his hair. “He’s not my mate. I thought—but he—”  
  
It only took Taekwoon a moment to realize that he was looking at the opposite end of the situation he’d put Jaehwan in two months before. Partners, lovers split apart. Some of them did it slowly but it was worse to draw it out: to pretend you were falling out of love was harder than pretending to change your mind. “He left you?”  
  
“He had to,” he whispered, rubbing at his eyes though he continued to cry, struggling to keep his voice stable. “His mate came. He came to our house, he—he came into our house—”  
  
“I’m so sorry,” Taekwoon breathed, his heart swelling with pity. He couldn’t imagine what that would have done to him—done to Jaehwan. Someone walking up to his door and smelling like mate, like partner, someone he couldn’t hope to resist. The stranger coughed and rubbed his eyes, shaking his head.  
  
“He was excited,” he whispered, smiling a little. “So young, so excited… I just. Pretended I was a friend, I had to, I had to get out. I couldn’t—I couldn’t watch him fall in love with someone else, I couldn’t.”  
  
Taekwoon eased down into the leaves and sat beside the stranger, offering his shoulder and his hand. He wouldn’t usually do this—wouldn’t be able to support someone else like this but maybe Hakyeon was rubbing off on him, a little bit. The guilt he felt over Jaehwan probably had something to do with it too. The stranger leaned against him and cried like a child, fingers fisted into Taekwoon’s turtleneck and torso jerking with every breath.  
  
“It’s all right,” Taekwoon whispered, smoothing down dark, soft hair. “It’s all right. It’ll be all right.” Someday. Someday it would be all right.  
  
Hongbin, the stranger introduced himself, blushed with embarrassment as he stood and sniffled, rubbing at his eyes.  _My name is Hongbin._  And Taekwoon gave his name and his address when they parted, should Hongbin need somewhere to go.  
  
He tried not to be surprised when Hongbin arrived on his doorstep a few days later, red-eyed and carrying a pair of duffle bags. “Come in,” he said, blinking at the smell Hongbin was giving off. Determination. Resignation, desperate sadness. But beneath it all the wound was starting to heal and Taekwoon was jealous for no reason: nine weeks, and he was no closer to filling the space he’d forced Jaehwan from.  
  
“I talked to Wonsik,” Hongbin said, once he was sitting at the kitchen counter, a mug of tea in his hands. “He… We’re going to try to stay friends.”  
  
“That’s good,” Taekwoon nodded, stirring his own tea and watching Hongbin attentively.  
  
“What happened to your lover?” Hongbin asked. “When you found out he wasn’t your mate?” Caught off guard, Taekwoon blinked and swallowed, found his eyes watering and his breath coming hard. Hongbin waved his hands in alarmed apology. “I’m sorry,” he started, eyes wide behind his dark bangs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”  
  
“I forced him to leave,” Taekwoon said. He stared at the counter and watched his own tears fall onto the stone. “I made him leave. I couldn’t. I was. And he…”  
  
“You were in love with him.”  
  
“Yes.” Yes, he’d been in love with Jaehwan. Was still in love with Jaehwan, chasing the ghost of his memory, following it through the house like the sound of his laugh in the morning from the kitchen, bubbling up in his pretty throat as they kissed one another breathless.  
  
“You’re still in love with him.”  
  
“…Yes.”  
  
“Is that why you can’t smell me?”  
  
“What?” Taekwoon blinked and looked up. Hongbin was looking at him intently, his mouth a bit tense, his brow furrowed.  
  
“Is that why you can’t smell me,” Hongbin asked again, setting down his tea. “Because you’re lost in him?”  
  
“I don’t—” Taekwoon watched Hongbin stand, watched him walk around the counter and made a sound of confusion when he found himself bullied against the stone, his breath hard and fast. “What—”  
  
“I can smell you,” Hongbin said, one hand cupping the back of Taekwoon’s head, bringing it forward to rest in the crook of his neck while leaning his own head forward to do the same, breathing in the scent of Taekwoon’s skin. Taekwoon fought his grip, tried to push away from the counter but Hongbin’s lips were on his throat and he gasped, opening his mouth and taking in a lungful of Hongbin so close, this close. Smoke, leather, lust and beneath that something irresistible, something that made Taekwoon spread his legs and tip his head back. No, he thought to himself as he panted, felt Hongbin’s hands cupping his waist, pulling him close when all the strength left his body. No, no,  _Jaehwan_ —  
  
“Jaehwan isn’t here,” Hongbin murmured, gentle as could be. Taekwoon bit off a sob. Hongbin was holding him up and speaking into his ear. “Jaehwan isn’t here anymore, Taekwoon. But I am. Please. Please breathe me in.”  
  
“No,” he whimpered, even as he clung to Hongbin’s more upright form. “No, I don’t want to, I don’t want to forget—”  
  
“You won’t,” Hongbin promised, lifting Taekwoon up from the floor and holding him under the thighs. “You don’t have to forget him, Taekwoon, but please—please I’m your mate, I’m right here, please.”  
  
“I love him,” Taekwoon whispered, and Hongbin kissed his trembling lips.  
  
“I know.”  
  
Hongbin carried Taekwoon to the bedroom and laid him down on top of the sheets. He let Taekwoon cry into the pillows and his shoulder for as long as it took for him to catch his breath. He smoothed Taekwoon’s dark hair and kissed his forehead, his eyes and the bridge of his nose. He let Taekwoon sleep and rubbed his head over the pillow so when he woke, it wouldn’t be Jaehwan in the curve of his instincts.  
  
They went on this way for nearly a month. Hongbin did not try to uproot Jaehwan’s memory; he simply helped Taekwoon move through the process of letting go. Jaehwan was still missing, but he could take care of himself. He was a strong, capable beast. Hakyeon called occasionally, and Taekwoon had soft, kind things to say about Hongbin, not ready to admit that yes, they were mates, he could smell it now: like the echo of warm, heavy cologne. Over the days, Taekwoon became more and more comfortable with Hongbin and one dark evening, when the hawaiian-print shirt sat reverently folded in the closet, he found himself in the bed they’d been chastely sharing, climbing up next to Hongbin, nude and pale. Hongbin watched him closely, he could feel it, and he leaned down to kiss Hongbin’s lips, wet and soft.  
  
“Please.”  
  
Hongbin sat up and let Taekwoon down onto the bed, kissing his throat. Taekwoon tipped his head back to offer more skin, hands clenching in the bedsheets. Hongbin hummed, moving his lips down Taekwoon’s trembling body.  
  
“Does it feel good,” he asked, sucking at the hollow of one hip, hands on Taekwoon’s thighs to hold them down and open, leaving the older man utterly exposed. “When I do this, does it feel good?”  
  
“Yes,” Taekwoon whispered, tilting his pelvis. “It feels good.”  
  
“How about this,” Hongbin asked, cupping the tip of Taekwoon’s erection with his tongue. He smiled at the strangled gasp and jerking of Taekwoon’s thighs: nearly four months without a touch and he was eager, his length hard and his legs shaking. Lazily, Hongbin sucked and tongued at Taekwoon’s tip, letting saliva run down the shaft to be pumped by his hand, the other hand pre-occupied with rubbing fingers between Taekwoon’s cheeks. Hongbin was not small, and he desperately didn’t want to cause Taekwoon any pain.  
  
“There’s—there, in the—ah—” Taekwoon’s hand was groping for the bedside table, where a bottle of lubricant was sitting in the drawer. He managed to grab it and place it into Hongbin’s hand, shivering and lifting his legs to hold them under the knee, exposing himself utterly. With a groan of approval, Hongbin slicked his fingers and pushed one inside, relishing the desperate gasp, the way Taekwoon’s legs jerked apart. “More,” Taekwoon whispered. “More.”  
  
Hongbin moved his mouth away from Taekwoon’s length to focus on kissing the insides of his thighs and the soft skin of his sac, pushing his fingers in and out in rhythm, opening him slowly. With one ball in his mouth he pushed four fingers into Taekwoon and turned his wrist back and forth until the older man was gasping and jerking, biting his lip, his eyes squeezed closed.  
  
He got up between those long legs and rubbed himself wet, carefully positioning himself before placing one hand on Taekwoon’s tense belly. “Taekwoon,” he said. “Taekwoon.” When the man beneath him opened his eyes, he smiled tenderly. “Look at me.”  
  
He started to push. Taekwoon looked at him, watched him. His mouth dropped open, his tongue on his bottom lip and he made the most beautiful moaning sounds and when Hongbin bottomed out he groaned long and loud, arching his back, squirming to relieve the pressure. Hongbin was big, and the pressure on his pelvis was immense: four months since he had weight between his legs and he could feel himself starting to cry, hiding his face in embarrassment.  
  
“Look at me,” Hongbin urged, gently rocking his hips forward. “Look at me, Taekwoon. I’m right here.”  
  
Taekwoon stared up at him, wordless. His small sounds were breathy and somewhat anxious, his hands finally finding a place on Hongbin’s strong forearms. He should have been expecting the swelling against his body but somehow it had slipped his attention that Hongbin was an Alpha—his presence now was overwhelming, overpowering and Taekwoon whimpered when Hongbin buried himself and held very still, just kissing Taekwoon’s chest, licking at his nipples.  
  
“Hongbin,” he whispered, his eyes half-closed. “Hongbin, I—”  
  
“Can you feel me?” he asked, teething gently at Taekwoon’s chest. The older man nodded, rocking his hips just enough to keep Hongbin moving inside of him. “How does it feel?”  
  
“Good,” he whispered, his fingers working up into Hongbin’s hair. “You feel so good.”  
  
“I’m going to cum in you,” he said, kissing Taekwoon’s nipple and sitting back, one hand pressed down against Taekwoon’s erection, holding it against the man’s smooth belly. “Make me fill you.”  
  
The older man whimpered, planted his feet on the bed and lifted his hips as much as he could, riding Hongbin’s knot and rubbing his length up into Hongbin’s hand until he started panting, losing rhythm. He yelped, trembled all over when he came, gasped in when he felt Hongbin push all his weight forward and down.  
  
“I,”  
  
“Can you feel me?” Hongbin asked, pumping his hips slow and lazy, bringing his hand up to let Taekwoon lick at his fingers, bending to share the taste between their mouths. “I’m  _your_  alpha. I’m  _your_  mate.”  
  
“Yes,” Taekwoon whispered, tears prickling the corners of his eyes. “Yes.” He cried even harder, when Hongbin bent to kiss away those tears, cradling Taekwoon’s body with his own. He felt the last of his heartache drain with the pull of a blanket over their bodies, watched it disappear as Hongbin spooned against him and nuzzled his head, the back of his neck. He felt Jaehwan’s memory fading, felt his absence being filled with Hongbin instead and he cried, but Hongbin just held him and kissed him and let him cry. He deserved to cry.  
  
And the next morning, when Hongbin was kissing him awake with a cup of coffee and a piece of crisp bacon, Taekwoon could feel himself starting to really heal.  
  
He hoped that, wherever he was, Jaehwan was doing the same.

 


	2. A Star Forms.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which jaehwan is the worst at moving on, but help comes from unexpected places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> functional interspecies erotica. you've been warned.

Taekwoon tells him to leave, so he does.  
  
For a moment he leans against the door. His chest is collapsing in on itself. He squeezes his eyes closed and bares his teeth, shoves away from the wood. He forgets his good news. The walk back to his apartment seems longer than usual, his feet wet and cold in his canvas shoes by the time he makes it up the stairs and through the door. The dying star in his ribs is expanding. He clutches at his chest and gasps for air, on hands and knees in the foyer.  
  
Taekwoon told him to leave, and he did.  
  
Distance, he knows, won’t ease the star’s explosion, it’s inevitable implosion. All of his bones are going to snap and crunch and his blood is going to be sucked out of his body when the black hole opens up but he has a few moments, until then. He's always been a coward. He's going to run, because he doesn't know what else to do, and there's no one who will stop him.  
  
He packs a duffle bag and nothing else. Clothes, mp3 player, two pairs of shoes. A toothbrush, toothpaste, he can live without shampoo but he can’t abide dirty teeth. A bar of soap that smells like coconut and another that smells like bamboo and all the jewelry he can sell.  
  
The pawn shop is only a block away, and there is an ATM a block from there. He makes a thousand dollars, selling the gold and trinkets. All of it goes except the ring his mother left him, worn tight around his middle finger, and the steel chain wrapped around his right wrist. He empties his bank account and he gets on a bus.  
  
Taekwoon told him to leave, but he never said how far to go.  
  
The dying star collapses in on itself in the back seat of a greyhound bus, somewhere around two in the morning. Torso jumping, arms and legs tense Jaehwan cries with his mouth closed, staring out the window at the headlights going by. He’s flying through space and all the worlds are fpassing by like gems under a bright light, flashing, sparkling.  
  
He gets off the bus at noon and walks to a terminal. He takes another bus. And another. And another, until he’s lost somewhere in Louisiana, where the hot weather weighs him down and the water in the air attempts to put out the fire in his lungs. Louisiana isn’t as far from New York as he wants to be, but it’s as far as he’s willing to go. Associated tribes out to the west will find him. It’s all ferals in the south.  
  
It’s all ferals and Jaehwan trades money for a tent, for a sleeping bag, for tarps and a sturdy steel platform. He goes into the swamp and doesn’t look back. The light is fading, but the fire still burns.  
  
He can’t smell anything strange, when he puts together the steel and bolts. He wraps the metal in branches and leaves, pulls the green and brown tarp over the tent to keep it dry. He climbs inside and rolls out the sleeping bag and for a long, long while, he lays there.  
  
He lays there on his side and looks at his duffle bag. He listens to the sounds of the swamp, bullfrogs and snakes and the distant bellow of an alligator, the buzzing of insects. He listens until the sun goes down and then he strips off his clothes, climbing out into the sweltering, suffocating night. Naked in patchy moonlight he changes. It’s always been painful for him. Not like Taekwoon, who could change while running, smoothly transitioning even with clothes on: no. Jaehwan struggles through rearranged bones and growing fur, claws from his fingertips and the extending of his spine. At the end he huffs and puffs and lays down; gold and brown sable, he lets himself fall into the Wolf and forgets.  
  
For days. Weeks, months? Jaehwan is the Wolf. Distantly, he knows it’s not healthy, he knows his human heart still aches but the Wolf thrives. It carries Jaehwan through his pain. The Wolf has no black hole in it’s ribs, no pain in it’s eyes; it survives. An omega survives on it's own. He doesn't need the pack. He doesn't _need it._  
  
Then the pack arrives.  
  
Migratory, smelling thick of blood and strength. Feral beasts with snarling lips. They finally corner Jaehwan on a moonless night; they bite at his ears and legs and demand he change. The big black alpha looks so much like Taekwoon. Jaehwan whines and forces the shift: breaking bones, shedding hair. Months in the Wolf has left him thin, though not gaunt. He is a competent hunter on his own. Not an excellent one, but he hasn’t been starving. Two wolves close their teeth around his hands to keep him still, broken skin but not broken bones. The alpha stares with depthless eyes and Jaehwan feels naked, like all of the ache that’s been chasing him is on display and perhaps it is, because he’s crying. Hot tears and no sobbing. The alpha licks away the saline and bullies Jaehwan to the ground. He doesn’t fight. He wonders where Taekwoon is, he wonders if his autumn smell still lingers in the abandoned apartment. He wonders if he ever looked for him, or wanted to.  
  
The alpha snarls, and silently the pack disappears into the trees. Jaehwan’s heart breaks.  
  
Free of the Wolf, Jaehwan staggers his way back to the tent by scent alone, as his vision is warped and blurry. It smells like himself and no one else. It smells like his passing heats and his tears, like his filthy hair and sweat. He brushes his teeth, runs his tongue over them. He sleeps on the sleeping bag. He sleeps for days.  
  
He wakes to the sound of growling. It makes him meek. He unzips the tent and lets the wolf in. He zips the door closed and he gets on all fours. It’s not hard to smell what the alpha is here for. His big penis is unsheathed, his balls heavy with semen. The alpha knocks him to the floor and Jaehwan closes his eyes, readying himself for the worst. He's read about what happens when a “domesticated” wolf wanders out into a feral pack. He knows what's going to happen to him.  
  
But first Jaehwan is licked from neck to knees. He is inspected, for health and strength. The warm, soft tongue touches every crevice of his body, licks the sweat from his underarms and thighs, laps against his hot groin. Jaehwan is shuddering, trembling though not crying when the alpha mounts him, face buried in the sleeping bag and his fists. The alpha jerks his hips forward a few times before his penis pushes in, thick and long. Jaehwan cries out loud and teeth grip his neck, force him up to his hands. This is not a mount meant for pleasure, not even for mating. This is a claim and it hurts, the stabbing in his gut, the relentless piston of hips. Hot, hairy thighs and the slap of that swollen sac make Jaehwan feel small and helpless. The alpha knots him and he screams, cries; he’s never taken a knot. Taekwoon never—  
  
But Taekwoon is gone, and all there is, is the scent of the big male on top of him, pinning him down. And when he cums Jaehwan weeps, dropping to the sleeping bag and shivering, thighs aching, neck bleeding. When he cums Jaehwan heaves like he’s going to throw up, like that dead star is going to come up his throat and spill like glass onto the sleeping bag, the bottom of the tent, but it doesn’t. It's trapped inside his chest.  
  
The alpha’s knot comes down and he snarls. Jaehwan reaches to unzip the tent, shaking so hard it takes three tries for him to get the zip down. He’s sobbing, crying shamelessly and the alpha stares at him with those dark, dark eyes. It makes him feel exposed and he cries harder, trying to hide his face even as the alpha nudges his cold nose against Jaehwan’s hands, licking his tears, his saliva, snot and sweat.  
  
He leaves Jaehwan alone in the dawn, the sound of his own agony the only thing keeping him company.  
  
Two wolves come, three days later. Jaehwan is lying on the sleeping bag, thighs sealed with semen where he hasn't moved for three days. When they change they are beautiful, tan-skinned and soft-handed. One of them pulls Jaehwan up, and the other rummages through his belongings. They all but drag him to the river a half-mile away, where the water runs clearer, and fast. The smaller one washes his hair with the soap, the bigger one washes his body. They are both well-kept and clean themselves. Distantly, Jaehwan thinks he should be ashamed. But the alpha’s cum is pressed out of his belly by firm, strong hands and he groans, gripping one dark shoulder and whimpering. The smaller one licks his face, nuzzles at his temple.  
  
When he is clean for the first time in months, the wolves kiss him and lead him back to his tent. They turn the sleeping bag over. They bully him to lay down between them and they sleep beside him like pups in a den. Jaehwan feels safe. Secure. He sleeps peacefully. For the first time in months, he does not dream of Taekwoon’s hard face, his stiff shoulders. He does not dream of Taekwoon, mated to someone else.  
  
He wakes in heat and not alone. Shivering, he grips the sleeping bag and ruts against it, not opening his eyes. He can feel the alpha like he can feel the moon and he groans at a touch to his thigh. The alpha climbs on top of him, a smaller weight then he expected. The blunt head of his penis is rubbed against the soft, wet heat-slit and Jaehwan whimpers. He is wet. He is hot and itchy, he wants to claw his own skin off and his body is more than ready, more than willing, otherwise that little fold of flesh would not be open, not even to the wolf on top of him. The alpha pushes his tip inside and Jaehwan claws at the sleeping bag instead, trying not to twitch his hips.  
  
“What is your name,” the alpha asks, rocking his tip in and out. Jaehwan wonders if he’s watching the swell of pink, wet flesh, if he’s enjoying the wet sound against his penis. For the first time in months Jaehwan speaks, his voice hoarse and grated.  
  
“Jaehwan.”  
  
“Jaehwan,” the alpha repeats. "Soft, soft Jaehwan." He pushes inside, buries himself in soft, wet warmth and holds Jaehwan’s shoulders down. Jaehwan groans and relaxes, his eyes still closed. He could not mistake the man behind him for Taekwoon. He’s shorter, his thighs broader. His hands are smaller but seem to have more strength in them, as they pull and push Jaehwan back and forth. His hips rock hard and slow. This is a different kind of claim.  
  
It is a good claim.  
  
Jaehwan trips into orgasm so many times he loses count. The alpha, his alpha, fucks him fast and shallow, deep and slow. He fills him again and again and Jaehwan is on his back when they finish, trembling.  
  
“Look at me,” his alpha asks and helpless, Jaehwan opens his tear-swollen eyes. He only catches a glimpse of his alpha’s face before soft, wet lips are on his. Fingers in his long, messy hair and a chest pressed to his while his body is curled in on itself. Jaehwan grips that smaller body, clutches him. The alpha licks his tears and chuckles, kissing his closed eyes. “How many times will I clean your tears,” he asked, tonguing one eyelid, the curve of Jaehwan’s brow. “How many times will you weep him away, whoever drove you here.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Jaehwan chokes. The alpha settles on top of him. His heartbeat is strong and Jaehwan takes great comfort in it.  
  
“Tell me about him.”  
  
“I can’t,” he says. The alpha sucks at the skin of his cheek. “He’s… And I…”  
  
“In time, then,” he says, and Jaehwan nods, opening his eyes. Looking down at him are bright, wild eyes and shaggy hair, pale skin and blunt fingers that cup his itchy cheek. “In time. You must promise me.”  
  
“I promise,” he whispers. His alpha hums in approval.  
  
“Come. Come meet the pack. They’ve been waiting for you.”  
  
“Waiting?”  
  
“Of course,” he says, easing up and away, smirking as a rush of cum spurts out. Jaehwan flushes red and reaches down to cover himself. His alpha laughs. “Come. They’re waiting.”  
  
Jaehwan eases up and follows his alpha out of the tent. Not too far, on another grassy knoll is a group of nude wolves, only a few of them older than Jaehwan. He recognizes the two dark-skinned pups and smiles shyly when they bound to greet him, chattering away and kissing his face, his hands.

  
His alpha looks on in approval, and Jaehwan feels that black hole finally starting to close, giving up the fight to force Jaehwan into disappearance. A tall wolf with a wealth of red hair bends to kiss his mouth as greeting, and Jaehwan smiles.  
  
He tastes like pinegum. And this pack-- they all smell like home.  
  



End file.
